Thursday, October 07, 2004

Duck Soup Day

I have declared November 17th to be 'Duck Soup Day'.
It marks the anniversary of the initial release of the Marx Brothers' classic, 'Duck Soup'. This year will be its 71st anniversary.
I'll remind you all closer to the time, but I thought I'd let you know in advance so that you could plan your celebrations - perhaps even organise what your local comminuty will be doing for the occasion.
I suggest that we all hunker down over a bowl of duck soup (even though it doesn't actually feature anywhere in the film). Also, several rousing choruses of 'Hail Freedonia' must be sung, almost certainly featuring the Groucho dance. And you can attempt to recreate the 'false mirror' sequence with a friend. Should your friends be unavailable/fictional you could always just do it in the mirror, though that might defeat the point of the routine.
Failing all this, my final recommendation is that we all watch the film, which you can prepare for by ordering it on DVD by clicking here if you're in the UK, or clicking here if you're in the States. If you're in Latvia, Pakistan, Belgium, Canada, Hong Kong, China, Iceland, France, Spain or anywhere else, I'm sure you're perfectly capable of finding it for yourself.
So remember: on November 17th, have some fun, show no respect for authority, and generally act like an idiot.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you know the story of the marx Bros and Irving Thalberg, the head of MGM? they were signed after their films at Paramount and Thalberg had a habit of setting up meetings and then making them wait for hours.
Finally one day after waiting for Thalberg to show up, they locked themselves in his office, took off all their clothes and started roasting potatoes in his fireplace.
He never made them wait again. And they made some fine films for MGM

Joe said...

That's brilliant! I never knew that - thanks. Maybe we should all roast potatoes naked on Duck Soup Day. Or is that dangerous?